The Dothraki Are Not Known For Their Etymology

So, looks like it’s “guns” again today. Ah, sex and guns— those two magical topics about which America never tires of arguing.

Someone on the internet (does it really matter who?) has announced that on April 19th, at 12:00 noon, every gun owner in the USA should “fire their weapon at the same time.” To be heard by…? I dunno, probably “Gun Control Supporters” or something. Don’t ask me— the whole thing sounds vaguely like a lyric from Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild.”

That being the case, I hereby declare April 19th to be “National stay in your basement in a bathtub under a ballistic kevlar vest Day.”

As a legal gun owner I feel no need to fire ANY of my weapons at a specific place or time to make any kind of point. It’s my personal opinion that people who would pull out a loaded gun, and fire it, “to make a point,” or lodge an objection directed at someone with whom they disagree, or just as a not-so-veiled threat, probably AREN’T the wisest and most level-headed gun owners in the first place. Just saying. If such a massive display were to take place, and the hyper-reactionary media got hold of it and did that voodoo-that-they-do, it could seriously set back the cause of Gun Rights supporters by 50 years in this country.

Jihadists stand around yelling and firing their weapons in the air in a display of outrage. I’m not one of those.

I suspect this brilliant idea springs from recent concern that Connecticut’s new firearm registration law MUST result in sinister, overreaching government operatives kicking down doors in that state and seizing firearms.

Quick reality check, folks: that’s not going to happen. Because it can’t. Any move to launch such surburban search and seizures on a mass scale would set off a political shitstorm so ugly that every political gun-control proponent in that state would be under investigation or out of office inside of a week. In addition, such mass seizures couldn’t be implemented even if someone dared try. There are too many guns in the American general population, registered and not, and the people whom the government would send to take them (police and military) are the LAST people in the country who want to disarm private citizens of lawfully-owned firearms. Because they themselves fall into that category.

So what’s really going on in Connecticut?

In Connecticut a new registration law was passed(obviously) and the state is attempting to enforce it (which makes sense). People who submitted their applications AFTER the deadline are being contacted and offered one last chance to “get rid of those illegal guns.”

People who registered their guns in accordance with the law are NOT being hassled. People who DIDN’T register their guns in accordance with the law are not being hassled, because the authorities don’t know they have illegal guns.

Only those who tried to register and failed are being sent notices. That’s a seriously small percentage.

NOW… if there’s now a law on the books in Connecticut allowing cops to confiscate unregistered firearms they discover in a vehicle or at a scene without having to return them to the owner afterward, then that’s a thing. Except existing laws in most U.S. states already allow that same result, under assorted circumstances. Everybody knows that if the police seize an unregistered gun from your property you aren’t likely to get it back. In some places it’s just handguns, but now Connecticut has made it a bit tougher by including “long guns.” Same thing, though.

Look, the main reason we don’t need more gun laws is because we ALREADY HAVE A MASSIVE BODY OF GUN LAWS. Guns are seriously regulated in this country. Why wouldn’t they be? They are dangerous as hell. Gun licenses are already required in most places, same as pilot licenses, explosives handler licenses, medical licenses, and driver’s licenses. Because “Duh.”

In the case of Connecticut, that whole law is essentially just a feel-good action taken by a lot of grief-stricken people after last year’s school shooting there. They wanted to do SOMETHING, so they did. But the actual effect will probably be negligible. If someone wants to shoot up a school in Connecticut, they can still do so. Now they just have to use a “registered weapon” to do it. And there are plenty of those still lying around in that state, believe me. Because there is a 6 billion dollar-a-year business that supplies them to the U.S. citizenry.

Besides which, you can’t legislate the “crazy” out of everybody, and you definitely can’t childproof an entire country.